ALCIBIADES (I) by Plato - Complete text

Page 42

Soc.: And if the proof, although not perfect, be sufficient, we shall be satisfied;—more precise proof will be supplied when we have discovered that which we were led to omit, from a fear that the enquiry would be too much protracted.

Alc.: What was that?

Soc.: What I meant, when I said that absolute existence must be first considered; but now, instead of absolute existence, we have been considering the nature of individual existence, and this may, perhaps, be sufficient; for surely there is nothing which may be called more properly ourselves than the soul?

Alc.: There is nothing.

Soc.: Then we may truly conceive that you and I are conversing with one another, soul to soul?

Alc.: Very true.

Soc.: And that is just what I was saying before—that I, Socrates, am not arguing or talking with the face of Alcibiades, but with the real Alcibiades; or in other words, with his soul.

Alc.: True.

Soc.: Then he who bids a man know himself, would have him know his soul?

Alc.: That appears to be true.

Soc.: He whose knowledge only extends to the body, knows the things of a man, and not the man himself?

Alc.: That is true.

Soc.: Then neither the physician regarded as a physician, nor the trainer regarded as a trainer, knows himself?

Alc.: He does not.

Soc.: The husbandmen and the other craftsmen are very far from knowing themselves, for they would seem not even to know their own belongings? When regarded in relation to the arts which they practise they are even further removed from self - knowledge, for they only know the belongings of the body, which minister to the body.

Alc.: That is true.

Previous Page / First / Next

Plato : ALCIBIADES (I)

Learned Freeware